Mozilla Pushed Add-on to Firefox and Now Pulled It Into Add-on Store

Last week Mozilla, the company behind the Firefox web browser, pushed an extension out to the popular browser, without informing its users or requesting permission. The extension was named Looking Glass and had the cryptic description of "MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS," which left many users to found it confused and concerned a piece of spyware was on their computer.

As it turns out this extension is part of a marketing promotion for the TV show Mr. Robot and not a danger to anyone's computers. It is for an ARG connected to the show and needed to be explicitly enabled to play the game, but this was not communicated to users when it appeared on their systems. Now the extension has been moved to the Firefox Add-on store and is no long being pushed on users. If you are a fan of the show and want to play the ARG, you can follow the store link.

Along with the move to the add-on store, there is also a Firefox support page concerning Looking Glass, which states the television series centers around online privacy and security, which are among the ten guiding principles of Mozilla as, "individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional."

Along with the number of user comments concerning this event, Gizmodo has also shared some public comments of a Mozilla software developer, who is equally dismayed by this.

For me the thing that keeps me to it is also something that keeps me from upgrading to the newest version. I love the Tab Groups feature that once was a built-in feature, then an extension, and now impossible in the newest version. (The new engine FF57 uses locks out a lot of UI control, and Tab Groups needs that control to be possible.)